The Antarctic Express is a children’s parody book combining the Polar Express with the Mountains of Madness. I have mixed feelings about these kinds of parodies, generally aimed at adults who think it’s silly to make the Lovecraft Mythos into something cute and cuddly. However, this book won me over.

Horror for the Holidays is a collection of 26 Lovecraftian tales published by Miskatonic River Press. It was published in 2011 and was edited by Scott David Aniolowski. The figure of Krampus is featured on the cover. He is standing beside a 19th century-garbed evil elf-child and what appears to be a sack full of dead children. Despite this cover, the collection features holidays throughout the year, not just Christmas.

In only a few months it will be time to return to Providence to visit the haunts of my favorite author. In the meantime I plan on spending the long, cold winter nights sipping tea and reading some Mythos and other weird fiction. The Lovecraft Ezine had a great holiday sale and I picked up 20 ebooks for $20. While I still prefer to read real paper books, ebooks are quite convenient and make it easier to get a hold of works that I may not have otherwise.

Now I just need to find the time to read everything. So far I read 101 Cthulhu Mythos Haiku by Marcus R. Gilman. It was a quick read and I finished the book in less than 10 minutes. I liked figuring out which stories or creatures each haiku is referring to. HPL’s tales are a bit verbose and heavy on the adjectives so artistically summarizing a Lovecraft story into a 17 syllable haiku must have been no easy task. Many of the haikus are somber and attempt to capture the feel of the stories. Some are a little silly, and I enjoyed those in particular,for instance: